Like the South African leader Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi has become an international symbol of heroic and peaceful resistance in the face of oppression. For the Burmese people, Aung San Suu Kyi represents their best and perhaps sole hope that one day there will be an end to the country’s military repression.

As a pro-democracy campaigner and leader of the opposition National League for Democracy party (NLD), she has spent more than 10 of the past 17 years in some form of detention under Burma’s military regime.

In 1991 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to bring democracy to Burma. At the presentation, the Chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, Francis Sejested, called her “an outstanding example of the power of the powerless”.

After a period of time overseas, Aung San Suu Kyi went back to Burma in 1988. Soon after she returned, she was put under house arrest in Rangoon for six years, until she was released in July 1995.

She was again put under house arrest in September 2000, when she tried to travel to the city of Mandalay in defiance of travel restrictions.

She was released unconditionally in May 2002, but just over a year later she was put in prison following a clash between her supporters and a government-backed mob.

Burma’s Human Rights Abuses
Burma is ruled by a highly authoritarian military regime. In 1962, General Ne Win overthrew the elected civilian government and replaced it with a repressive military government dominated by the majority Burman ethnic group.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s Website
Aung San Suu Kyi is the daughter of one of the Burma’s most cherished heroes, the martyred General Aung San, who led his country’s fight for independence from Great Britain in the 1940s and was killed for his beliefs in 1947.

Biography
See this comprehensive biography of the life and times of Aung San Suu Kyi from 1942 to 1995

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